Chiriaco Summit Author

SOHA’s Dr. Mary Contini Gordon was recently a part of Calabasas Author’s Night. Please see the article posted on the station’s site below:

“Business and Innovation Leader, Speaker, Writer/Researcher and Author Dr. Mary Contini Gordon is a meticulous researcher with years of examining organizational issues in the public and private sectors. She was the executive director of the Hughes Institute for Professional Development and oversaw professional and executive development across all five Hughes Companies. After retiring at the end of 2008, she became the facilitator for the Arizona Technology Council’s CEO Network in Tucson, mostly small companies, some family businesses.

Joe Chiriaco and his thirteen siblings heard this from their Italian immigrant father as he recounted his ocean journey to America. In the face of limited water and rudimentary dirt roads, Joe and his Norwegian wife, Ruth Bergseid, founded Chiriaco Summit in the 1930s, a desert travel oasis on today’s Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Los Angeles, promising to serve the world on wheels.

The twenty-four-seven challenges are lightened with the courtship of two feisty lovers, the frolicking of youngsters in the desert, more loves, and the juxtaposition of some very imposing personalities, including those of Joe Chiriaco and General Patton.

After moving through new aqueducts and highways, military camps, societal upheavals, and a welcome new set of hard-working immigrants, the twenty-first century brings provisions for electric cars, modern aircraft, and ATV facilities outside Joshua Tree National Park from whence the first Summit waters flowed.

Dr. Gordon is dedicated to telling the stories of those who may not be well known, but contribute mightily to the fabric of this country.”

Oral History Review

The Oral History Review publishes narrative and analytical articles and reviews, in print and multimedia formats, that present and use oral history in unique and significant ways and that contribute to the understanding of the nature of oral history and memory.

The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) is proud to offer for the first time a day-long "Doing Oral History" workshop from 9am-5pm on November 13 in Baltimore, Maryland as part of the AMIA 2019 conference schedule! "Doing Oral History” will provide training in each of the core areas of this important documentation method.